by Yossi Porat
“We must have scared them off before they had a chance to look around and steal anything. Are we not the bravest people – such heroes, both of us!”
…..
At 7:20 that morning, Morris turned over in bed, the springs of the old mattress pushing painfully into his back. He opened his bleary eyes and tried to focus on the night stand clock. He shook Anne, who was still asleep.
“Anne, wake up, it’s late,” he shook her gently.
“Mmmm,” she murmured. “It must be the wine from last night. We really had a lot, didn’t we? But it was wonderful,” Anne kissed him softly. “Let’s try to make a baby this morning, what do you think?”
“Darling, I promise you we will have lots of children – just not this morning.
It’s already late.” Morris looked around the room, and noticed something
strange. Hadn’t he put his cell-phone on his night stand as he always did? Why was it now on his dresser? He decided that he must have been so tired and drunk that he had actually left it on his dresser…
As he drove away from home to headquarters, that feeling of heat in his head and neck returned. Maybe there was something wrong with his cell-phone; he’d have to get it checked out soon.
…..
“Good morning.” Shlomo was on the secure satellite phone with Mischa. It was 6:30 in the morning and he and Leora were still in bed.
“Something strange happened last night,” Mischa reported
“What’s that?” Shlomo asked sleepily.
“Our surveillance people saw two figures, masked and dressed all in black, go into each of the subject’s houses. At the woman’s house, there was evidently quite a disturbance, and even after the two left the house, the lights were burning until this morning. They left without anything, as far as our team could see.”
“OK,” Shlomo replied. “We’ll try to see if we can find anything on the company’s computer.” He thought to himself, “The company probably sent these people to put some kind of surveillance device in the subjects’ houses.”
…..
Adam entered the elevator with a curt nod to Sol. His hands were tensed in fists by his sides. Even his greeting to Laurie was more restrained than usual. As he entered the office he shared with Andrew, he saw that his partner had his eyes glued to his computer screen, rather than to his usual Sudoku puzzle.
“How did everything go?”
“Our guys were discovered at 1002’s house. The husband came downstairs and there was a short fight, but the subjects of course couldn’t see their faces. The cell-phone was modified in time, of course. They were smarter when they went to 1003’s house. They managed to spray the bedroom with nitrate poppers and the couple reacted as expected, sleeping a long, undisturbed sleep. Of course, we erased the memory of the poppers in the morning.”
“From the wife as well?”
“Of course, Adam. You know I always take care of the smallest detail.”
Chapter Ten
Deborah hurried out of her office and entered Raphael’s without knocking.
“I have a problem,” she began abruptly. “I’m not been myself lately – I’ve cheated on my husband with you, even though I love him and my family more than anything. And the worst part of it is I don’t even feel guilty about it.”
“Maybe you’re looking for something better.” Raphael suggested.
“So why now? Why did I start now? What’s changed lately?” Deborah cried.
“Deborah, how are old you? Forty-four, right? It could be menopause, or maybe a feeling that you want to experience more, right now. Maybe you want to live out some fantasies that you can’t at home. You know I’m good for that,” he smiled.
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. And you’re not really helping,” Deborah sighed, head in hands. “How perfect she is,” Raphael thought.
Raphael thought about their latest encounters. “Looks like it’s over now,” he thought regretfully. “But still – it’s worth a try,” as he pulled out a box of Belgian chocolates from his bottom drawer.
Deborah looked at him and thought, “What – he’s trying to tempt me with chocolates? How shallow does he think I am?” And yet, something drew her to him. “He is generous and sexy, and we did have a great time in bed.” She again felt the heat in her head as she drew nearer to him. Raphael held her in an embrace, moving into her suggestively.
“I have a small flat near here, on Fleet Street,” he whispered in her ear. “Let’s meet there at three.”
“I’ll be there,” Deborah breathed. She left the room and he watched her enticing walk until the door closed behind her.
At ten minutes past three, Deborah was knocking on the door of the flat on Fleet Street.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said, drawing her into the dim room. Deborah looked around, disappointed. The flat was cheap and poorly furnished, with nothing to distract her from the thought that it existed for one purpose and one purpose only. “But still,” she thought to herself, “this is what I came for.” She lay down on the bed, and he came to her. As he opened her blouse, she kissed him, first on his neck, and then moving downwards. Removing her underwear, she sat on top of him. He entered her and she shuddered with pleasure. She felt him coming, but her climax was short and disappointing after the pleasures she had experienced with him in their previous encounters. She felt, disappointed, cheated somehow.
Twenty minutes later, walking down Fleet Street toward the Tube, Deborah felt a wave of cold, despite the hot day. She realized that she was actually running away from Raphael, and lost in despair, she blindly crossed the street.
Suddenly, she felt herself knocked down to the ground. A black car was practically on top of her, and she felt hands pushing down on her chest. She coughed and sat up.
“What happened? Who are you?” she cried to the man leaning over her.
“I hit you with my car. You came out of nowhere! Are you all right?” his eyes filled with worry and fear.
“I don’t know. I ache all over,” she answered slowly. She looked up and saw that a large crowd had gathered around them. “Maybe I should go to the hospital,” she said to the man.
“Right away,” he said as he picked her up from the road. Deborah felt safe in his strong arms. Examining his face, his frank, open brown eyes, his strong mouth, she felt much better.
“Actually, I’m feeling less pain now,” she said to him. “Maybe you could just take me to my office.”
The man carefully arranged Deborah in the passenger’s seat. Sitting behind the wheel, he turned to her. “Deborah, isn’t it? We met the other day in Fenwick’s.”
“That’s right,” Deborah smiled in recognition. “What a coincidence! But how do you my name?”
“I’m Morris. I’m a police detective,” he answered, smiling. “I asked the clerk in the store. Are you sure you’re feeling all right? What happened to you? What were you thinking as you crossed the road? You were completely out of it, you know.”
“You’re right,” she admitted with a sigh. “But now I’m fine. I’d just like to get back to work.”
As she got out of the car, she leaned over to thank him. “By the way, which station do you work from?”
“Buckingham Palace Road,” he answered. “Maybe our paths will cross again.” He watched her until the building swallowed her up.
Deborah couldn’t believe the coincidence. “Is this some kind of fate? Strange things have been happening to me lately, I think. I wonder what’s going on.” She entered the washroom and threw cold water on her face. Looking at herself in the mirror, she saw how pale and drawn she was, and decided to hide it with some makeup.
In her office she leaned back on her chair, feeling slightly better. “I must tell someone everything that’s happened to me lately. It can’t be Lance – I don’t want to hurt him. It has to be someone who doesn’t know me or him.” She turned to her computer and Googled “psychotherapists stress trauma London. Over five thou
sand entries showed up. “Too much,” she thought. “How can I possibly pick the right one?”
Then an idea struck her. “Why don’t I talk to the policeman? What was his name – Morris? He seemed nice, and the main advantage is that he doesn’t know me or Lance.”
She found his station’s number and dialed it quickly, asking for Morris by name. His voice came on the line, “Yes, hello. How can I help you?”
“This is Deborah. Can I talk to you?” Deborah asked in a rush.
“I’m all tied up today, Deborah. Would tomorrow be all right?”
“Yes, that’s fine,” she smiled into the phone. “Can we meet at the Starbucks in Piccadilly Square at one?
“Of course. Take care and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Deborah hung up and wondered if she would really be able to talk to him. Would he be sympathetic? Would he understand her? Morris, at the other end, wondered what she wanted from him. “It must be about the accident,” he thought to himself.
Chapter Eleven
Andrew and Adam entered the company elevator, nodding politely to Sol. “So, tell me what’s happening,” Adam asked Andrew. Sol tried to make himself invisible, so that he could hear the latest news.
“Well, we’ve run into a problem,” Andrew answered. “The transmissions to 1002 and 1003 got scrambled together.” With a glance at Sol, Andrew signed to Adam to leave it for later. But Adam paid no attention. “Oh my God, what happened?”
Andrew kept his voice down as much as he could. “The subjects met yesterday, through some bug of ours in the broadcasts. I’m on it. We’ll discuss this in the office,” he snarled, casting a suspicious look at Sol, who smiled and nodded, seemingly oblivious to their tense conversation.
Sol waited for them to leave the elevator and hurried to the men’s rest room. Entering the farthest stall, he opened the overhead window and drew out his satellite phone. The instrument let out a small beep as he pressed “Send.” He decided to send a message rather than risk being overheard. “There seems to be a problem,” he texted. “The subjects met yesterday. They’re worried about it. How to proceed?”
Half a minute later there was an answer from Menahem. “Let’s continue on the same level of alert. We don’t want to panic them. PS. How’s Leora?”
Shlomo ran the water and left the stall. There was Andrew, leaving the stall next to him. “I hope he didn’t hear my phone beep,” Shlomo thought to himself.
…..
Menahem was on the phone in his office, getting an update from Na’ama. “We’re starting to see some results,” she reported. “We can see their inter-office emails, most of which have to do with the two subjects, 1002 and 1003.
They seem to be having problems broadcasting to them when they’re in enclosed spaces. Last week the woman was on a plane and she easily returned to her pre-test psychological state, as they had no way of transmitting to her. She began to feel nauseated and sick, thinking about what she had done the previous few days. She’s continued to be troubled, even after returning home and receiving the transmissions. The man as well seems to be having second thoughts about his unusual behavior.”
“What else?’ asked Menahem.
“It seems the two subjects have met, through a flaw in the transmitting devices. First they met for a few minutes in a department store, and yesterday, he practically ran her over. This combined broadcasting idea has very sinister applications, if you think about it. They could program huge groups to perform anything – including sabotage and terror. But we’ll keep monitoring and see what happens. Meanwhile they’ve stopped transmitting to 1002 and 1003, to prevent further incidents. We have no other interest in these two, so we should probably stop our surveillance on them.”
“I’m not so sure,” Menahem replied. “Let’s keep up our watch on them as well for the time being. What about cracking their algorithms?”
“Well, we’ve found out where their programming unit is based, but we’ll need the help of American surveillance satellites to get a closer look. Maybe we should wait on that, though, before showing our hand to the Americans. What do you think?”
“OK, and keep up the reports, twice a day, please,” Menahem was about to hang up when Leora asked, “By the way, what’s Octagon?”
“It’s an eight-sided figure,” Menahem replied. “I know that, silly,” Leora’s voice had become flirtatious. Menahem wonder to himself, “Does she know I’m not happy at home? Does she have an interest in me? This could be very interesting…”
Menahem respected Leora, both professionally and personally. On a personal level, he admired how she handled her handicap. A childhood car accident had left her walking with a cane, but she never gave any sign of the pain she lived with every day. Professionally, he remembered her handling of the Khaled Mashal affair in 1987, when she correctly predicted how King Hussein of Jordan would react to Israel’s failed attempt to poison the Hamas leader.
Waking out of his reverie, he texted Shlomo to keep watching, keep out of sight and report back to him if anything unusual occurred.
Shlomo turned to Leora at her reception desk. “What do we tell the Syrian?” he whispered to her.
“Let’s talk at home,” she urged. “I know you’re worried that the Syrian wants to take me out on a date, but I do know how to handle myself,” she smiled.
The Syrian was an agent of the Syrian Intelligence agency who had been identified by the Mossad. He disguised himself as a wealthy sheikh and spent his times at jazz clubs on Oxford Street. The Mossad knew that his purpose was actually to get close to a woman in the Company and find out as much as he could about Control. Leora was now his target, but of course he did not know who or what she really was.
Shlomo hugged Leora, and Leora returned his warmth and love. They were one, he thought.
Chapter Twelve
The market of the old city of Damascus was thronged and Abu-Razik breathed in the air, heavy with the smells of his childhood. The mounds of red paprika, the grains of black pepper, the yellow turmeric – all brought him back to his days as a boy, running through the narrow alleys with his friends. He stopped at the candy booth and enjoyed the sight of the halva, tan and white, the sunflower seeds wrapped in plastic. He remembered the days of sitting with his friends in the courtyard of his house, laughing and cracking open the seeds, leaving the shells on the ground for the servants to sweep up. The grown-ups would be sitting nearby, puffing on their nargilas, while the olive trees shaded them all from the hot Syrian sun.
Now he watched as an old, bent man lead his equally old and bent donkey through the crooked alleys of the market. He was hitting him with a small olive branch, its little green leaves slapping the donkey’s weary back. The baskets he was loaded with burst with heads of lettuce, white and red cabbage, green onions, and at the sight of this Abu-Razik was again filled with nostalgia for those long-ago days.
He reached al-Azaam Square and sat down at one of the small round tables of “Al-Hader” restaurant. Around him the tables were filled with men sipping at their arak and playing backgammon. Not one woman in sight, thought Abu-Razik. As the owner, a cousin on his mother’s side, greeted him and exchanged pleasantries, he thought of how this man, his childhood friend, had never once left Syria and how lucky he himself was, having seen the world. They had grown apart, he thought, and no wonder.
The waiter brought him his steaming cup of black coffee and he sipped it as he watched the goings-on in the Square. He left without having to pay, of course, and headed to the nearby Umayyad mosque, feeling all eyes on him and reveling in his renown and power in the city.
As he sat on the bench at the entrance to the mosque, he felt a warm hand on
his shoulder. Here was the purpose of his little walk around the city – it was Hani Salama, the head of Syrian intelligence. Nicknamed Abu-Ahmed, “The Snake,” he was dressed in a traditional djellaba, his head wrapped in a gold-and black striped keffiya.
The two walked together hand-in-hand. Abu-Razik kne
w he had to plan his report carefully. His superior was a sly, cunning man, which is how he had earned his nickname. Any false step would be held against him and used for the Snake’s own purposes. They reached the Bab-el-Faraj gate, fast modern cars vying with ancient horse-drawn wagons for the right of way. Abu-Razik watched the women, dressed in large, flowery dresses and holding their children’s hands as they shopped in the many colorful stores in the area. He was reminded of his beloved mother and how he, as a child, would help her in her shopping. He felt a lump in his throat and forced himself to return to the business at hand.
